Category: Arms Sales

Improved Prospects for U.S. Arms Sales Restraint? Look to Congress

1/3/2019

This is the sixth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2019 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Jeff Abramson

The odds may at first appear to be against greater restraint in U.S. arms sales in 2019 given a president who loudly touts the supposed economic benefits of weapons sales and refuses to reconsider arms transfers to Saudi Arabia despite (1) the Saudi role in the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen and (2) a global outcry over the ghastly embassy assassination of U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. But a close examination of Congressional action, much of it building over the last three years, reveals real prospects for limiting the president’s dangerous approach on conventional arms trade.

The most high profile signs of this restraint revolve around the most high profile U.S. arms purchaser, Saudi Arabia. A loud rebuke of Trump’s approach to the kingdom came in December when a bipartisan group of 56 Senators took the highly unusual step of using the 1973 War Powers Resolution to direct the president to end U.S. military action in the war in Yemen, including any refueling to the Saudi-led coalition. An earlier vote in March garnered only 44 votes. The outcry over Trump’s unabashed arms support to Saudi Arabia played a large role in changing many Senators’ minds.

Another War Powers-based resolution should expect to win Senate approval in the new Congress, when it is re-introduced. In the House, the new Democratic majority would also be likely to approve such a resolution. While leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has yet to indicate when a such a measure might be brought forward, she is one of 101 co-sponsors of the previous House version, which was blocked by a late procedural action in December.

The War Powers Resolution came on the heels of steps more explicitly addressing the arms trade. In June 2017, 47 Senators voted to block more than $500 million in precision-guided munitions (PGM) sales to Saudi Arabia; and in September 2016, 27 Senators supported stopping a $1 billion tank sale. While neither of these measures were successful, they indicate the building Congressional opposition to unrestricted arms sales to Riyadh. That sentiment was encapsulated after the recent War Powers vote when co-sponsor Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said that “momentum is…only growing. Congress has woken up to the reality that the Saudi-led coalition is using U.S. military support to kill thousands of civilians, bomb hospitals, block humanitarian aid, and arm radical militias.”

In addition to these very public votes, some Congressional leaders are acting in other ways to reign in unwise arms sales. Under the U.S. system, leaders within the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee are pre-notified of potential arms sales. That pre-notification period has been the more traditional place for an opposition hold on controversial sales. For a period in 2017, former SFRC chair Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) declared a hold on new arms sales to Gulf Cooperation Council countries. More recently, ranking member Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) placed a hold on PGM sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. While Corker is no longer in Congress, Menendez retains his position and his June 2018 hold remains in place. During the recent War Powers debate, he argued that the Trump administration view of the U.S.-Saudi relationship was “unhinged” in thinking that “selling weapons to the Saudis was more important than America’s enduring commitment to human rights, democratic values, and international norms.”

These actions are promising, and creative Congressional leaders have the opportunity to do more. While the public can be an ally for responsible action on Foreign Military Sales (FMS) because such government-to-government negotiated sales are quickly added to a public website, the increasingly important business-led Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) are not as transparent, in part because any public notification often comes after the initial review period has passed. Congressmembers could insist that, or possibly take it upon themselves to make, these potential DCS transactions public immediately. Saudi PGM sales, for example, have come through the DCS process and relied upon concerned leaders to share in raising awareness.

While the notification period garners the most attention, Congress also can block a sale up until weapons are delivered. Given how security, geopolitical, and humanitarian realities can change between the time of notifications and often years-later deliveries, leaders should follow the entire process. To the best of my knowledge, however, the relevant chair and ranking committee members have only once used the power they gave themselves to receive from the State Department a notification of an arms shipment at least 30 days prior to its delivery. It’s time to exercise, and to expand, such authority (see Section 201).

In general, transparency around arms deliveries remains too obscure as a New Hampshire NPR reporter recently discovered. When U.S. Census export data showed weapons worth more than $61 million were sold from his state to Saudi Arabia in August, he could not uncover what was in the sales nor which companies provided the weapons. Annual reports on U.S. arms transfers have grown increasingly opaque. Congress should mandate a change, demanding much greater transparency on the specifics of what is in U.S. weapons deliveries.

Finally, sometime in the first quarter of this year, we can expect the administration to publish final rules transferring export authority on select firearms from the State Department to the Commerce Department, despite a large number of negative public comments and great deal of concern. These rules have been at the heart of the 3-D gun printing controversy that energized public debate in the middle of last year. Members of Congress have raised an alarm that they will lose notifications about these sales, and need to be prepared to stop, or counteract, this dangerous export process change. Just as Trump’s broad approach on arms sales does, these changes risk making it easier for weapons to end up in the hands of terrorists, international criminals, and abusive regimes as well as further undermine the promotion of human rights norms that should be central to U.S. actions.

Jeff Abramson is a non-resident senior fellow at the Arms Control Association and manages the Forum on the Arms Trade.

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Will reckless, risky and wrong-headed UK support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen continue?

12/14/2018

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This is the first blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2019 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Anna Stavrianakis

The war in Yemen has killed over 57,000 people since March 2015 and created a cholera epidemic and a politically induced, entirely preventable famine. The Saudi-led coalition is causing twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces fighting in Yemen – including the Houthis, who are also responsible for attacks on civilians and on aid and humanitarian actors. Primary support for the Saudi-led coalition comes from the USA; but a crucial junior partner is the UK. The UK government claims to have been at the forefront of international humanitarian assistance, giving more than £570 million to Yemen in bilateral aid since the war began. Yet the financial value of aid is a drop in the ocean compared to the value of weapons sold to the Saudi-led coalition – licences worth at least £4.7bn have been granted to Saudi Arabia and £860m to its coalition partners since the start of the war.

Rejecting responsible action

The UK’s own rules state that it cannot sell weapons to countries where there is a clear risk they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law. And the UK claims, repeatedly, to have one of the most rigorous control regimes in the world. Yet evidence of illegal civilian harm in the war is ongoing and growing.

So how does the UK government try to convince itself and others that its arms export policy is not in tatters? First, by batting away extensive evidence of violations of international humanitarian law, claiming it can't be sure they have happened. Despite a risk-based arms transfer control framework that is explicitly preventive in orientation, the UK government demands absolute certainty that its weapons have been misused before it will countenance a suspension – and even then, concerted action to stop weapons sales is not guaranteed. Second, by working with the Saudis to claim that if attacks on civilians have happened, they must have been a mistake. Central to this has been the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) – headed by a Bahraini military lawyer who oversaw national security trials of over 300 pro-democracy protestors in 2011. The JIAT has investigated only a small proportion of alleged incidents, and its methodology, sources and case selection criteria remain unclear. Its conclusions have taken the form of blanket denial; admission of limited, accidental civilian harm; and most frequently, a defence of air strikes that it says were carried out in line with IHL. All of these responses are contested by NGOs tracking civilian harm in the war. And third, that any past misuse of weapons doesn’t necessarily mean future misuse is likely. In the judicial review of export policy, a senior civil servant’s evidence stated that “Past behaviour is a helpful indicator of attitude towards IHL and towards future behaviour, but it is not necessarily determinative”. It is difficult to imagine civil servants or High Court judges articulating such a position if they were working in counter-terrorism policy, an issue area that operates on the basis of suspicion, intuition and an absence of evidence.

In these three ways, according to the UK government, while there may be a risk of weapons being misused in Yemen, that risk is not clear. The upshot is an exponential rise in arms sales since the war started, to the point where Saudi Arabia now accounts for almost half of UK arms exports.

Change ahead?

Nonetheless, there may be glimmers of hope for an end to the war in Yemen. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi has generated a crisis in US and UK policy that four years of war have failed to do. While his murder has little to do directly with arms sales, and it is dispiriting that four years of evidence of the misuse of weapons has failed to register in US and UK policy, it has shone a spotlight on the war in Yemen. Pre-talk consultations in Sweden between representatives of the government of Yemen and the Houthis ended on 13th December with an agreement that included a ceasefire in Hodeidah, steps to address the situation in Taiz, and prisoner exchanges. These are tentative, fragile steps that would mitigate civilian harm if adhered to, but still need considerable political effort to translate into an end to the war.

The US Senate has passed two resolutions to halt US involvement in the war and curtail its support for Saudi Arabia – a significant development. The US government has called for ceasefire – which sounds positive but may also be a move to block more radical action from Congress. In the UK, FCO Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt appeared not to know the US was going to make that call. The UK is making increased efforts to address the humanitarian effects of its own support for the coalition by introducing a draft UN Security Council resolution – but this has been blocked by the US. Domestically, a former defence attaché to Riyadh spoke out about UK complicity through its arms sales in October 2018 – the first acknowledgement of the recklessness of UK policy from the military establishment. And a judicial review of UK policy is ongoing: the High Court found in favour of the government in July 2017, but Campaign Against Arms Trade has been granted an appeal, which will be heard in April 2019.

These moves illustrate the ways that the UK government has been forced to expend greater energy in justifying its position, working with the Saudi-led coalition to engage in legitimation work, and devote greater resources to the aid response. Looking forward to 2019, the major milestone for British policy on the horizon is the judicial review appeal. Will the Court of Appeal show greater independence from the government than the High Court? What new justifications will the government roll out? Watch this space.

Anna Stavrianakis is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex.

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What the National Security Strategy Might Mean for Conventional Arms Transfers

12/22/2017

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This is the ninth and final blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2018 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Shannon Dick

The Trump administration recently released its National Security Strategy (NSS), presenting the administration’s broad priorities for confronting global security challenges. Among other things, the strategy reflects Trump’s “America First” approach to U.S. engagement in the world and, with that, a focus on economic concerns. One subtle but important implication of such a focus will be the impact on U.S. conventional arms transfer policies and how the administration uses arms sales as a tool to support U.S. national security policy priorities and foreign policy ideals.

The NSS references conventional arms transfer-related issues in three specific instances: twice in discussion about renewed capabilities and once in discussion about approaches to regional security in Africa. The inclusion of conventional arms in the NSS, however, reflects larger themes of investing in U.S. industry, facilitating exports, and reducing restraints.

Indeed, references to conventional weapons in the NSS reflect the administration’s emphasis on augmenting U.S. military capabilities and bolstering the defense industry. In one instance, for example, the NSS highlights military modernization as a means to reinforce the United States comparative advantage in the global market for security and influence.

MODERNIZATION: Ensuring that the U.S. military can defeat our adversaries requires weapon systems that clearly overmatch theirs in lethality. Where possible, we must improve existing systems to maximize returns on prior investments. In other areas, we should seek new capabilities that create clear advantages for our military while posing costly dilemmas for our adversaries. We must eliminate bureaucratic impediments to innovation and embrace less expensive and time-intensive commercial off-the-shelf solutions. Departments and agencies must work with industry to experiment, prototype, and rapidly field new capabilities that can be easily upgraded as new technologies come online.

As part of the effort to “renew capabilities,” the NSS also prioritizes easing processes and procedures for U.S. defense industry – particularly with regard to supporting weapons exports.

ENCOURAGE HOMELAND INVESTMENT: The United States will promote policies and incentives that return key national security industries to American shores. Where possible, the U.S. Government will work with industry partners to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in key technologies and manufacturing capabilities. In addition, we will reform regulations and processes to facilitate the export of U.S. military equipment.

At the end of the NSS, the administration does draw attention to the negative consequences of irresponsible and illegal arms transfers in its discussion of various security concerns in Africa.

MILITARY AND SECURITY: We will continue to work with partners to improve the ability of their security services to counter terrorism, human trafficking, and the illegal trade in arms and natural resources. We will work with partners to defeat terrorist organizations and others who threaten U.S. citizens and the homeland

Overall, however, the NSS emphasizes the economy of arms sales and the benefits to be had from more investment in and export of U.S. military equipment. Yet such an approach to arms transfer control policies – that is, one that reorients the focus of U.S. policy to the competitiveness of U.S. defense companies – may overlook other fundamental tenets of U.S. policy governing weapons sales, such as the potential risks to civilian lives and human rights.

Before the NSS’s release, the Trump administration had already demonstrated a willingness to ease restrictions on certain international arms sales. In June, for example, the Trump administration approved the transfer of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia despite concerns about civilian casualties. The weapons deliveries were originally blocked in December 2016 due to mounting concerns about the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen, and the heavy toll that airstrikes placed (and continue to place) on civilians. In August, Trump reversed course on an earlier decision to halt the sale of attack aircraft to Nigeria due to known human rights abuses. And in September, the administration approved a multi-billion-dollar arms sale to Bahrain that had previously been conditioned on improvements in the country’s human rights record – improvements that arguably have not been met.

In the end, the Trump administration’s approach to conventional arms transfers may result in more weapons sales to a wider array of actors. While such an approach may support industry’s bottom line, it could also present a number of challenges to longer-term security and foreign policy considerations.

Shannon Dick is a research associate in the Managing Across Boundaries Initiative at the Stimson Center and a Forum-listed emerging expert

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Finding Leadership Outside the White House

12/21/2017

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This is the eighth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2018 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Jeff Abramson

Less than one year into the Trump administration, it is clear that the United States is unlikely to provide positive leadership in promoting responsible arms trade and weapons use. While the Obama administration certainly did not shy away from arms deals, it did sign the Arms Trade Treaty and withhold some arms transfers due to human rights concerns. What restraint Obama showed, Trump has jettisoned, evidenced in arms sales notifications of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) to Saudi Arabia in May, F-16s to Bahrain in September, and Super Tucanos to Nigeria in August – all deals that Obama had put on hold.

Further under Trump, drone use/air strikes have dramatically increased in number and/or in numbers of civilians harmed. The Defense Department has backed away from a policy that would have barred the use of certain cluster munitions, in particular older ones with an awful record for humanitarian harm. The administration also appears set to make it easier to sell small arms by transferring their control to the Commerce Department, completing the last steps of a controversial export reform initiative. In December, the United States abstained on the annual UN General Assembly resolution supporting the ATT, saying during First Committee that it was reviewing its policy. These and other indicators suggest that US arms use and trade, as well as any eventual new US conventional arms transfer policy, will simply remove the concept of restraint and further undermine commitment to and promotion of human rights.

This is an admittedly bleak initial picture, but there are many places the world can and should look for leadership outside of a US administration espousing an “America First” world view. Perhaps surprisingly, the first place to look is the US Congress. The close 47-53 Senate vote in June in opposition to the PGM sale to Saudi Arabia is an indicator that the Senate could take a more proactive role, especially if the rumored additional $7 billion in PGM sales come before it. Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy partnered on that work and together or separately merit watching in 2018. So too does Republican Senator Todd Young, especially in relation to the humanitarian situation in Yemen. Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy reacted quickly to the cluster munition policy reversal, and along with Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin have identified the need for Congressional involvement in any changes that would send small arms to Commerce control. A number of members of the House of Representatives have also taken up US weapons sales and use. A short list includes Democrats Ro Khanna, Mark Pocan and Republican Walter Jones, who co-wrote a New York Times oped critical of US support to Saudi Arabia, as well as Republican Justin Amash, and Democrat Ted Lieu, who has long expressed concerned about potential US complicity in war crimes.

Arming Saudi Arabia, or rather a commitment not to do so is also an appropriate litmus test on international leadership as the Saudi-led coalition continues to use weapons to the detriment of civilians in Yemen. In 2017, the European Parliament again called for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia -- a call not heeded by suppliers such as France and the United Kingdom, but one other European countries can and do support. Related, Sweden’s pending “democracy criterion” in arms sales is worth watching for an impact nationally and regionally. So too is Japan’s leadership of the Arms Trade Treaty for the 2018 Conference of States Parties, where thus far countries have frustratingly refused to directly address the inconsistency of arming the Saudis.

The recent conclusion of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the international civil society coalition that fought hard for the treaty (ICAN), draws global attention to the truth that leadership need not come from the normal “big players.” Those countries, led by the permanent five members of the Security Council (P5), tend to put traditional state-centered security over the needs of individuals (aka human security). But human security is at the heart of the nuclear ban treaty and a host of other successful treaties and initiatives broadly classified as “humanitarian disarmament.” On key treaties in this realm, Nicaragua is taking on the presidency of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Afghanistan will have leadership of the Mine Ban Treaty. They have the potential to bring a different type of leadership to arms-related issues in 2018. So too do some of the countries that were at the heart of the nuclear ban treaty, such as Mexico and New Zealand, who were also progressive voices during the Arms Trade Treaty negotiation.

The Nobel Peace Prize also reminds us that civil society campaigns play a critical role. In 2018, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots will continue calling for all countries to ban the development of fully autonomous weapons (“killer robots”). The countries participating in the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) working group may choose that path, which a growing number (22) are supporting. Leading roboticists and artificial intelligence experts are banding together with that message and writing letters to governments, spurring national parliamentary debates. In another campaign, the International Network on Explosive Weapons is helping to build momentum to address and end the practice of using explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas. These weapons are particularly devastating to civilians and civilian infrastructure, causing both immediate harm at the time of use and ongoing suffering from the disruption of economic and social activity.

Members of industry and the financial sector will also have the opportunity to display leadership. Late in 2016, German arms manufacturer Heckler and Koch announced that it would no longer sell weapons to undemocratic and corrupt countries. More recently in Japan, four banks and insurance companies recently announced that they would ban investments in cluster munition producers, joining a growing group that have made similar commitments in other countries.

While the future is always difficult to predict, in 2018 it would be wise to look outside the White House for leadership on proper restraint in the use and sale of weapons – without which, we can unfortunately foresee new suffering by civilians and the undermining of their human rights.

Jeff Abramson is a non-resident senior fellow at the Arms Control Association.

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European arms export policy at the crossroads

12/13/2017

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This is the third blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2018 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Frank Slijper

With no quick end of the war in Yemen in sight, much of the work on arms trade controls in 2018 will continue to concentrate on the massive scale of transfers of weapons to the parties involved in the conflict; in particular, the arms trade with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They are the two key actors in the so-called Saud-led coalition that has been fighting with Yemeni troops loyal to president Hadi against what used to be an alliance of Houthi fighters and soldiers loyal to ex-president Saleh. After the Houthi-Saleh alliance broke down in early December and Saleh was killed subsequently, it is hard to predict the outcome for the war, but the humanitarian crisis remains dire.

What has been clear throughout the conflict is that Saudi Arabia and UAE forces have continued to be main destinations of European (and US) arms and military support. Over the past nearly two decades, Saudi Arabia has been Europe’s number one arms destination, with the much smaller UAE at number three. These two oil-rich states have been a lifeline for Europe’s arms industry, especially in the UK and France.

This strong dependency of lucrative arms deals with the Gulf states explains much of Europe’s refusal to cut arms sales throughout the Yemen conflict, despite clear indications that these very weapons could be used in the conflict. The UK alone approved export licences for the Saudi regime worth more than 4.6 billion pounds since 2015. France is Europe’s main supplier to the Emirates, where Dassault receives full governmental support in its attempts to sell 60 Rafale fighter aircraft. Meanwhile it is going to upgrade their fleet of Mirage jets, which have been widely used in Yemen.

Europe has long boasted of having a highly advanced arms export control framework. That may be the case if you consider the level of guidance that come with the European Union’s Common Position on arms exports.

But if you consider the realities of recent major arm exports to the warring parties in Yemen, while claiming that exports need to be assessed against eight “far-reaching risk assessment criteria,” this is merely hollow rhetoric that is meaningless for millions of people in Yemen, who continue to suffer. Repeated demands from a majority of the European Parliament – through non-binding motions - for an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia have not led to decisive action – while it was no problem for EU ministers to agree to an arms embargo earlier this month against Venezuela, the number 49 arms export destination.

In 2018 the “legally binding” Common Position has its tenth anniversary, twenty years after the EU decided on a politically binding Code of Conduct guiding European arms export controls. These milestones mark undoubted advances (as well as some recent steps backwards) in terms of transparency in reporting arms transfers – something nearly non-existent twenty years ago. It has certainly not set “high common standards” reflected in real restraint in the face of blatant violations of human rights and the law of war. Only an immediate stop on arms transfers to all parties involved in the conflict in Yemen would give reason to celebrate the EU’s common export control system.

Frank Slijper is the Programme Leader on the Arms Trade at PAX, based in the Netherlands

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Sweden’s proposed “Democracy Criterion” for arms exports – taking the lead in export controls, or new words for old policies

12/12/2017

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This is the second blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2018 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

Sam Perlo-Freeman

This month, the Swedish Parliament is expected to vote on a government proposal to strengthen Swedish arms export controls, among other things by adding a “democracy criterion” that will require a recipient state’s democratic status to be taken into account as a central factor when evaluating export license decisions. The proposed new law follows 6 years of discussions and a Parliamentary commission of inquiry, which reported in June 2017. It has the support of the governing Social Democrat-Green coalition and the center-right opposition parties, so its passage should be guaranteed.

Sweden, as part of the European Union, is already bound by the EU Common Position on arms exports, which requires an export license to be denied if, among other things, there is a clear risk that the equipment to be exported might be used for violations of human rights or international humanitarian law. However, this is always part of a case-by-case evaluation relating to the specific equipment being sold; the status of the recipient state as such plays no direct role in the criteria, except in the small number of cases where there is either a UN or an EU arms embargo. The democracy criterion would therefore be significantly stricter than the EU Common Position—and indeed most if not all major arms exporters.

In fact, Swedish law already goes beyond the Common Position in terms of considering the status of the recipient, in relation to human rights abuses, but the new law clearly strengthens this.

Specifically, the law requires that the proposed recipient state’s democratic status—relating to the existence of democratic institutions, the possibility for freedom of expression and respect for fundamental democratic principles—shall be a “central condition” in the evaluation of export license applications, and that serious failings in these will constitute an “obstacle” to approval. Regarding human rights, where the existing law states that “gross and systematic” violations of human rights constitute an obstacle to approving a license, the bar is lowered to “serious and systematic” abuses. The potential for a sale to counteract sustainable development is also to be considered, and there are further measures to improve transparency in arms sales.

What the law does not enact, however, is an absolute ban on arms exports to dictatorships or to human rights abusers; each export license application is still to be judged individually, based on an overall judgment taking into account numerous factors, including those relating to security and defense policy. Thus, arms sales to non-democratic states could still be approved if the government (through the export control agency, ISP, the Inspectorate for Strategic Products) decides that defense industrial considerations outweigh the recipient’s lack of democracy. As far as I can tell, the law does not specify exactly how these issues are to be weighed against one another.

This lack of a clear ban on arms sales to non-democratic regimes, even dictatorships, has led to criticism from the peace movement, and in Parliament by the Left Party. Svenska Freds (Swedish Peace) has been particularly critical of the proposed law as leaving open too many loopholes to allow, essentially, business as usual. The proposal states that lack of democracy will be an “obstacle” to license approval, but, asks Svenska Freds Chairperson Agnes Hellström, “How high an obstacle”?

Other parties, including the Green Party and the generally right-wing Christian Democrats stated that they would have preferred a complete ban on arms sales to dictatorships, but accepted the cross-party proposal as a reasonable compromise. The two largest parties in the Swedish Parliament, the Social Democrats and the center-right Moderates both have strong traditional ties to the arms industry (via the unions and the business community respectively), and the former were the architects of the post-War policy of armed neutrality under which the Swedish arms industry—still remarkably advanced for a country of 10 million—was developed. Thus, a more absolute measure would have been unlikely to gain favor with these dominant players.

The question that will only be answered with time is, will the new regulations lead to a significant reduction in arms sales to undemocratic regimes, and perhaps a complete halt to sales to the worst dictatorships, or will the new form of words be simply used by the government to claim that it has fulfilled the promise of a ”democracy criterion,” while continuing with business as usual? (Also to be seen is whether the interests of sustaining an arms industry facing a severely limited domestic market will always be high enough to vault the democracy and human rights obstacles.)

A starting point for judging the new law is examining how Sweden’s and other major European exporters’ export control regimes are already willing to export to repressive regimes. (Please see note on data further below)

Share of exports to “Not-Free” countries

Country                                  Deliveries 2007-16               Licenses 2012-16
United Kingdom                                49%                                        38%
France 37%                                        51% (orders)
Germany 12%                                        36%
Italy 26% 15%
Spain 19% 13%
Sweden 15%                                        15%.

Sweden clearly comes toward the lower end on measures of deliveries (2007-2016) and recent licenses (2012-2016), with similar levels to Spain, although Germany has a lower share of deliveries over the longer period 2007-16. For licenses, the great bulk of Sweden’s export licenses to dictatorships come from a single $1.3 billion deal in 2016 to sell Saab Erieye Airborne Early Warning and Control systems to UAE—of particular concern given the UAE’s role in the air war against Yemen, where such advanced sensor systems could play a significant role. Sweden also sold an earlier version of the Erieye to Saudi Arabia in 2010 (delivered 2014). Other significant sales to “Not Free” countries include a 2012 sale of missiles and sensors to Algeria.[1]

One of the most controversial deals in Sweden in recent years, however, was the sale in 2008 and then 2010 of Gripen multi-role combat aircraft to Thailand. The deal was negotiated under the military regime that took power in Thailand through the coup of 2006, but the orders and deliveries took place between the restoration of civilian rule following the general election of December 2007, and the most recent coup of 2014. Nonetheless, the sale of such major equipment to a military establishment with a long history of coups, and where the return democracy was always highly fragile, was controversial. In the end, Sweden approved export licenses for delivery of around $100 million worth of military equipment to Thailand—now firmly in the grip of military rule—in 2016.[2]

While exports to Saudi Arabia have been a major focus of concern, in fact since the Erieye deal, export license approvals to the Saudis have been negligible; partly due to the breakdown in Swedish-Saudi relations following the non-renewal by Sweden in 2015 of a military cooperation agreement (although this agreement had produced few if any tangible results), but very likely also in part due to the high sensitivity of such sales. From 2014-16, license approvals to Saudi have amounted to just a few million crowns (less than $1 million).[3]

Thus, while Sweden does sell arms to dictatorships and human rights abusers, the evidence suggests that, in comparison with most other significant European arms producers, concerns over human rights do lead to some degree of restraint on the part of Swedish authorities. The new rules certainly have loopholes that will allow the Swedish government to sell arms to dictatorships when it really wants to, and it is possible that there will be no practical change; however, it seems likely that the strong level of pressure for restraint from both civil society, media and elements within Parliament, and the expectations of such accompanying the new law, will lead to some greater degree of caution on the part of ISP. For example, any significant licensing of arms sales to Saudi Arabia would immediately draw loud outcries and would (not unreasonably) be taken as proof that the new law is in practice meaningless. Sales to Saudi also jar heavily with Sweden’s declared feminist foreign policy. But a complete end to arms sales to undemocratic regimes is not on the cards.

Either way, assuming the new law is passed, Sweden will be a country worth watching to see if public opprobrium against the arms trade can create sufficient political will to make a more restrictive arms export policy a reality, in the face of the strong defense industrial pressure to maintain exports.

Samuel Perlo-Freeman is a Fellow at the World Peace Foundation (WPF), and Project Manager for the WPF project on Global Arms Business and Corruption

Notes on the data:

Analysis looked at the top 6 EU arms industries--the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden-- comparing across two measures: first, SIPRI data for deliveries of major conventional weapons over the period 2007-16, using their Trend Indicator Value (TIV) volume measure; second, the value of export licenses granted over the period 2012-16. For license values, unfortunately France changed their export licensing system in 2015 in a way that led to a massive increase in their license values, in a way that makes the data almost meaningless. Therefore, I used figures for export orders instead, which only France provides.[4]

For each measure, I looked at the total value of exports, and within this the share of the total going to countries classified as “Not Free” by Freedom House.

There are two caveat to the SIPRI TIV measure: first, it is a volume rather than a financial measure; since Western European countries have similar levels of income, unit costs are probably comparable, so this issue is not critical. Secondly, SIPRI data only includes major conventional weapons, which include some subsystems such as radars and engines, but not most. This tends to understate UK exports in particular, where a large proportion involves subsystems and components.

There are likewise caveats to the license data: first, not all licenses turn into deliveries, and the ratio of licenses to deliveries over time varies considerably between countries. I have not checked if this varies also by recipient country. Second, export license data only covers individual licenses, which allow a single delivery of specified equipment. It does not include open or general licenses, which allow for multiple deliveries of a category of equipment, and which therefore do not carry a financial value. The UK makes particularly high use of open licenses, so that export license figures severely understate the value of UK exports. Again, whether this understatement differs significantly by type of recipient, and therefore may distort the shares below, is unclear. The value of license data is that it gives the most direct idea of export license decision-making by governments.

[1] SIPRI Arms Transfers Database
[2] Swedish arms export control report for 2016.
[3] Swedish arms export control reports.
[4] License and order values come from national reports on arms export controls, available from SIPRI at https://www.sipri.org/databases/national-reports; export for the UK, where data is taken from the Campaign Against Arms Trade database on UK arms export licenses, which presents data in a far more user-friendly fashion than government sources; see https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/export-licences.

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In 2018, the Trump Administration Will Continue to Tout the Job Impacts of Arms Exports

12/11/2017

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This is the first blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2018 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.

William D. Hartung

Just as he did throughout his first year in office, during 2018 Donald Trump will no doubt continue to tout the domestic jobs associated with foreign arms deals as a signal achievement of his administration. The downsides of this emphasis include a relative neglect of human rights concerns, and a failure to gauge the negative strategic impacts of enabling questionable wars and fueling regional tensions. But there is scant evidence to suggest that the Trump administration will change course as a result.

Trump’s penchant for seeing arms sales as a jobs program was clear for all to see in his first foreign trip as president, a May 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia. With great fanfare, Trump announced that the United States would be selling $110 billion worth of weaponry to Riyadh – almost as much as the record levels offered during the eight years of the Obama administration. But upon closer scrutiny, tens of billions worth of sales that Trump was claiming credit for had been put together under the Obama administration. Other aspects of the deal involved vague promises of sales that may never come to fruition. Despite these facts, Trump threw up a nice fat number, and bragged that it would bring “jobs, jobs, jobs” to America. This is not to say that his administration will not seek major new sales to Riyadh, as evidenced by the October 2017 offer of $15 billion in missile defense technology to Saudi Arabia. But the $110 billion figure is a convenient fiction concocted for domestic consumption.

Similarly, in a November 2017 trip to Japan, Trump crowed about the “massive” amounts of weaponry Japan was going to buy from the U.S., “as they should.” And of course, he bragged about all the jobs that would bring to America. Trump’s number one example was the sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 combat aircraft to Japan.

There are two problems with Trump’s boasting. First, he seemed to be implying that he had something to do with brokering the F-35 sale to Japan. He did not. That offer was made during the Obama administration back in 2012. It seems like the only thing Trump truly likes about the Obama legacy is our ex-president’s ample arms sales offers – so much so that he routinely tries to take credit for them.

Second, and even worse, Trump has no idea of how few jobs the F-35 deal with Japan will actually create. As my colleagues at the Security Assistance Monitor have documented, the State Department has licensed a deal under which Japan will spend over $5 billion in exchange for the construction of an F-35 final assembly facility there. So, the Japanese purchase of F-35s will indeed create jobs – in Japan. Yes, the United States will be exporting F-35s to Japan. But it will also be exporting most of the jobs involved in building those aircraft. Another F-35 final assembly plant is being established in Italy to do much of the work involved in U.S. sales of the aircraft to its European allies.

The point that Trump seems to be missing is that most foreign arms sales these days involve “offsets” – investments in the recipient nation that, as the term suggests, help offset the huge costs of importing a modern weapons system. Under his Plan 2030, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (or MBS, as he is known more colloquially) has decreed that Saudi Arabia’s goal is to produce 50% of the value of any arms it imports in Saudi Arabia, up from 2% currently. U.S. firms like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have duly sworn allegiance to this goal, and a recently offered batch of Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky helicopters will be assembled in Saudi Arabia. In another example, Lockheed Martin is helping the UAE develop an industry to produce robotic machine tools that can be used in the defense and aerospace sectors, potentially in competition with U.S. and European firms. In other words, jobs in the UAE, brought to you by Lockheed Martin.

One of the ironies in Donald Trump’s continued bragging about the domestic jobs impact of arms exports is that weapons spending is virtually the least effective way to create jobs. A study by economists at the University of Massachusetts has demonstrated that almost any other activity – from infrastructure investment to alternative energy production to education – would create one and one-half to two times as many jobs per amount spent as weapons production. If jobs are the issue, the United States economy would be far better served by a focus on alternative energy technologies, a burgeoning field with a global market many times larger than the market for weaponry.

Things to look for in 2018 include the possibility of a sale of F-35s to the UAE – the first export of this aircraft to any Middle Eastern country other than Israel; more costly missile technology exports to the Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia; and a possible surge in the export of U.S. firearms in line with administration plans to deregulate major categories of these systems as it seeks to carry out the final phase of the Export Control Reform Initiative that was initiated by the Obama administration. Expect all of the above to be justified in significant part with cries of “jobs, jobs, jobs,” no matter how exaggerated those claims may be.

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy and a senior adviser to the center’s Security Assistance Monitor.

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A View from the United Kingdom: Trump's First 100 Days

5/4/2017

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This video blog is the eleventh entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.

Martin Butcher

In this video interview, Martin Butcher addresses these questions, at markers indicated below:

0:07 How is President Trump perceived in the United Kingdom?
3:05 What trends are you seeing?
4:16 What advice do you have for the Trump administration?

Martin Butcher is Policy Advisor, Arms and Conflict, Oxfam International

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A View from Brazil: Trump's First 100 Days

5/3/2017

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This video blog is the tenth entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.

Robert Muggah

In this video interview, Robert Muggah addresses these questions, at markers indicated below:

0:07 What is Brazil's involvement in the arms trade?
1:39 How is President Trump perceived in Brazil?
4:18 Do you have concerns about what you're seeing?
6:14 What advice do you have for the Trump administration?

Robert Muggah is Co-founder & Research Director at Igarapé Institute and the SecDev Foundation

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Trump’s First 100 Days of Foreign Military Sales Notifications Were More Than Eight Times That of Obama’s - No Restraint in Sight

5/1/2017

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Jeff Abramson

This is the eighth entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.

Occurring under the news radar, the general public was notified last Friday afternoon of an additional $2.6 billion in proposed foreign military arms sales, bringing the Trump administration’s first 100 day total to more than $6 billion. That figure dwarfs President Obama’s first 100 days, which included notifications totaling just $713 million.

FMS notifications that went online Friday, April 28

The Forum on the Arms Trade’s notification tracker maintains an overview and online spreadsheet of proposed government-to-government arms sales and services through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. While just one of many sources of arms transfers, the FMS program is typically the largest and most visible, offering a good indication of what countries will be priority arms trade partners for the United States in the coming years.

The value of FMS notifications this calendar year totals nearly $6.7 billion (note: $418 million of which was officially notified the day before Donald Trump took office). While many of these potential arms sales were already in the works, the pace of notifications suggest that the weapons trade will be a significant part of the president’s approach to foreign policy. Tellingly, nearly half ($3.1 billion) of the potential sales are to countries in the Middle East (Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) for pilot training, missiles, helicopters, naval guns, equipment for artillery and infantry troops, and other weapons and services. Other countries included so far in 2017 FMS notification are Australia, Canada, Greece, Kenya, NATO, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

At the hundred-day marker of Obama’s first term, FMS notifications only included Australia ($560 million) and Mexico ($93 million and $60 million) for helicopters and patrol boats. By the time his presidency ended, Obama had proposed approximately $430 billion in FMS, including a record-setting $103 billion in 2010 alone -- the vast majority of that going to Saudi Arabia.

Given the United States’ dominance of the global arms trade market and the Obama administration’s high level of sales, it might have been difficult to expect a Trump presidency to further expand U.S. arms transfers. But that now appears likely as this administration moves controversial deals to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain that Obama had put on hold. While not yet publicly notified, they are making their way through Congress. Deals to those countries, especially without preconditions, would appear to only reward suppression of human rights (Bahrain) and reckless engagement in fighting that fails to protect civilians (Saudi Arabia). Unless Congress chooses to exercise its authority over arms agreements and deliveries, there appears to be no restraint in sight.

Jeff Abramson is a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association and coordinates the Forum on the Arms Trade.

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<<Previous

Improved Prospects for U.S. Arms Sales Restraint? Look to Congress

Will reckless, risky and wrong-headed UK support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen continue?

What the National Security Strategy Might Mean for Conventional Arms Transfers

Finding Leadership Outside the White House

European arms export policy at the crossroads

Sweden’s proposed “Democracy Criterion” for arms exports – taking the lead in export controls, or new words for old policies

In 2018, the Trump Administration Will Continue to Tout the Job Impacts of Arms Exports

A View from the United Kingdom: Trump's First 100 Days

A View from Brazil: Trump's First 100 Days

Trump’s First 100 Days of Foreign Military Sales Notifications Were More Than Eight Times That of Obama’s - No Restraint in Sight

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